Confessions of a Former "Fixer" for the Catholic Church

I'm not exactly sure why my Google search agents did not pick up this story sooner, but nevertheless a several sites - including a U.S. based law firm, CBC Radio, a long running atheist news site and iNewsP.com - all have coverage of statements by a former Benedictine priest whose prior mission was to clean up the messy details of sexual abuse scandals from parish to parish. CBC Radio has an interview with the former priest, Patric Wall, where he discusses his former mission before deciding to leave the priesthood. He now serves as a consultant to California law firm. Here's the CBC Radio synopsis of the show featuring Wall:
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Bishop's Man - Patrick Wall
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For almost a decade, Patrick Wall played a special role in the Roman Catholic Church. A priest and a Benedictine Monk... he was also what's known as a "Fixer." He would be parachuted into a parish in the aftermath of allegations of sexual abuse. His job was to right the situation. And quickly, he became adept at making scandals go away.
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But over time, Patrick Wall became conflicted about the role he was playing. Eventually, his concerns pushed him to leave the Priesthood. Now, Patrick Wall spends his days helping people who have been abused by Church officials. He's a legal consultant and a Canon Lawyer with the U.S. law firm Manly and Stewart. He's also the author of Sex, Priests and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church's 2000-Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse. Patrick Wall was in Los Angeles.
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Does any of this surprise me? Unfortunately, not in the least and what Wall was charged with doing was very much along the lines of what Cardinal Egan, former Archbishop of New York, and Thomas Daly, former Bishop of Brooklyn and Supreme Chaplin for the Knights of Columbus, did while stationed in the Boston Archdiocese: threaten, intimidate and pay hush money to victims and their families to keep them quiet. The Church's reputation came first and foremost and to hell with the molested children and youths. iNEWSP's article contains the following passages:

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Figures from the John Jay School of Criminal Justice, for example, estimate that since 1950, about 280,000 children have been sexually abused by Catholic Clergy and deacons. With the shame and denial that accompany sexual abuse, the real number must be much higher.
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Worse, this is NOT just a recent phenomenon. Father Thomas Doyle, a priest, and Richard Sipes and Patrick Wall, former monks, have written that the Catholic Church has recognized the problem of abuse by priests for 2,000 years. Their book, Sex, Priests and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church’s 2000 Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse (Volt Press, 2006) was based on the Church’s own documents.
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And far from being the case of a few bad apples, Brooks Egerton and Reese Dunklin have reported that two-thirds of sitting US Bishops have been accused of moving pedophile priests to new assignments.[Dallas Morning News June 12, 2002] It is not the apples that are bad, it’s the barrel.
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The consistent abuse of children by priests is not a peripheral facet of the Catholic Church; it is the logical consequence of an entrenched male hierarchy’s inbred sense of its own privilege. Of course such behavior is the antithesis of the high ideals Jesus taught. But that is another way of saying that the Catholic Church has too often become the mortal enemy of those high ideals that are the Church’s only justification for existing.
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As for Wall's actions while serving as a "fixer,", here are some passages from the CBC Radio interview as reported by The Free Thinker:
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It was a job he did for almost a decade. He said that protecting the Church was paramount and that little or no concern was ever shown for the victims.
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Victims were regarded as a liability – a huge financial liability – and a big problem.Asked whether he ever considered reporting abuse to the police or child protection services, Wall said “never”.
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It was always about keeping the problem in-house and dealing with it in-house … it has been for centuries. The solution was always to move an abusive priest on, and to keep lay members in the dark with “pious answers” when they questioned the sudden disappearance of a priest from their parish, he said.
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You can listen to the broadcast here.

Cardinal Hypocrisy

The hypocrisy and self-importance of members of the Roman Catholic Church hierarcy is nearly insufferable at times. A case in point is Cardinal Egan of New York, who made a public statement that former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani should not have received holy communion during the visit of Pope Benedict XVI because Mr. Giuliani supports abortion rights. While I am not a fan of Mr. Giuliani, the hypocrisy of Egan who has anything but clean hands in the Church's sex abuse scandal is over the top. In fact, a case can be made that if Egan had any integrity and decency (which in my view he doesn't), he should have resigned from high Church office many years ago. Not only was Egan one of Cardinal Law's lieutenants in Boston, but he had his own dirty laundry as Bishop of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Arguably but for statute of limitations obstacles, Egan should have faced criminal prosecution himself. The man truly has no shame and is morally bankrupt, like most of the Church hierarchy. Here's what Egan said about Giuliani per today's New York Times:

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Cardinal Egan, head of the Archdiocese of New York, said in a statement that he and Mr. Giuliani had reached “an understanding” when he became archbishop in 2000 that Mr. Giuliani “was not to receive the eucharist because of his well-known support of abortion.” “I deeply regret that Mr. Giuliani received the eucharist during the papal visit here in New York,” the cardinal said. He said he would like to meet with Mr. Giuliani “to insist that he abide by our understanding” about not receiving communion.

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Now here is what SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, has previously reported on the sanctimonious Cardinal Egan back in 2002:

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NEW YORK, May 10 -- Cardinal Edward Egan of New York testified five years ago that he encouraged a priest to continue working and offered to write him a letter of recommendation even though he knew the priest was an admitted sexual abuser. Egan, who was bishop of the Bridgeport (Conn.) Diocese at the time, also testified that diocesan priests were "self-employed" and not the bishop's responsibility. And he said that he would not summarily suspend a priest, even in the face of shocking allegations of sexual abuse.

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Egan gave his videotaped testimony -- a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post -- in a 1997 lawsuit brought against the diocese by Frank Martinelli. Martinelli testified then that a priest named Laurence Brett had sexually assaulted him three times as a teenager in 1962 and 1963, including biting him during oral sex. The lawsuit ended with a secret monetary settlement.

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Martinelli's attorney asked Egan if he would suspend any priest who was discovered to have sexually assaulted a minor. "I would have to know the complete circumstances," Egan replied. The lawyer then laid out a hypothetical case with a fact pattern identical to the Martinelli case. (By this time, Egan was aware of church files showing that Brett had admitted assaulting Martinelli.)

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What if this priest was a teacher, the lawyer asked, and sexually assaulted a student and bit the student's penis? "That would be sufficient cause [for suspension], I'm sure, in many bishops' minds," Egan responded. Would it be sufficient cause in your mind? "I would have to know all of the details," Egan replied. "The suggestion is so strange I would want to know more about it."

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Egan has never directly acknowledged any missteps in Bridgeport or elsewhere. In a recent pastoral letter, he wrote that he "consistently sought and acted upon the best independent advice available to me from medical experts."

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The problem with Egan's claim of reliance on the advice of medical experts is that there is evidence that he and other members of the upper hierarchy MIS-LEAD the medical experts. Lies going in, bad advice coming out. Here are some highlights from a 2002 New York Times article:

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In an article yesterday in The Hartford Courant, Dr. Harold I. Schwartz, chief of psychiatry at the Institute of Living, a Hartford mental hospital that has treated scores of priests, said that church officials apparently withheld information about priests referred for treatment after allegations of sexual abuse, including information about earlier complaints of sex abuse. In the article, Dr. Schwartz also said that medical evaluations ''were misconstrued in order to return priests to ministry.'' Dr. Schwartz referred inquiries yesterday to Lee Monroe, a spokeswoman for the Institute of Living, who said that Dr. Schwartz and other institute officials were standing by remarks in The Courant.

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Questions about Cardinal Egan's handling of sexual abuse cases while he was bishop of Bridgeport from 1988 to 2000 arose after The Courant published excerpts of numerous previously sealed court documents related to lawsuits brought against eight priests who were accused of sexual abuse. The documents suggested that Cardinal Egan allowed several priests who were repeatedly accused of abusing minors to continue working and indicated that the cases were never referred to law enforcement officials.